


Downright Tenacious Optimism

by WorryinglyInnocent



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: A little bit of angst, Dark Castle, F/M, Fluff, Happy Ending, Rumbelle - Freeform, Rumbelle Christmas in July, Skin Deep AU, Smut, enchanted forest, rcij
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-22
Updated: 2018-07-22
Packaged: 2019-06-14 11:48:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15388128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WorryinglyInnocent/pseuds/WorryinglyInnocent
Summary: Skin Deep AU. When Rumpelstiltskin goes to turn Belle out of the castle after their ill-fated kiss, he comes to an impasse when she simply refuses to go. Out of options, he starts to accept that perhaps love is not such a bad thing, and if Belle is not willing to give up, then perhaps he shouldn’t be, either.RCIJ gift for @theoneandonlylittlebird, prompt: "I'm not giving up."





	Downright Tenacious Optimism

**Author's Note:**

  * For [theoneandonlylittlebird](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theoneandonlylittlebird/gifts).



“It’s quite simple, really. My power means more to me than you do.”

“No. It doesn’t.”

Rumpelstiltskin was brought up short by Belle’s frank statement, and for a moment he was wrong-footed. He had been in his stride, and he had thought that surely, telling her that she was secondary to the curse that he was under and the power it gave him would let her know the true state of affairs and make her leave the castle.

Belle was showing no signs of going anywhere. She folded her arms, staring him down steadily with an expression of defiance, daring him to contradict her.

He had not planned for this scenario. He had been so convinced that his words would have been enough to send her running from the place. He didn’t know what sorcery could have caused their true love’s kiss to begin to work, but she surely couldn’t really be in love with him. He was a monster after all, the monster who had taken her away from her family and kept her locked in a dungeon. He had done everything he could to convince her that he was not a man to be loved. Whatever she was feeling could not be love, whether she thought it was or not.

“I can assure you that it does,” he said.

Belle shook her head. “You can’t deny true love, Rumpelstiltskin. It’s the most powerful magic of all. You’ve seen the proof of it with your own eyes.”

He had, and that was what had terrified him. Whatever feelings that Belle might have had towards him, for her to realise that he felt about her in the way he did gave her power over him of a kind wholly unrelated to the darkness that he wielded himself. That was a powerful weapon, and one that he could not and would not let her exploit.

“I’m not leaving,” she said. “I’m going to make you see what’s right in front of you, even if you’re too blind to accept it now. I’m not giving up, Rumpelstiltskin. You can shout and bluster as much as you like, but you’re not going to scare me away. Act the power-hungry beast if you like, but I know you better than that.”

“Fine,” Rumpelstiltskin said. “If you won’t leave, you can stay here. You can stay here in the dungeon until you starve to death, because if you think that I will spare a single thought for you after I leave this cell, you’re sorely mistaken. Once that door closes, you’ll be nothing but an unpleasant memory.”

Surely that would have her running for the hills. No-one would risk that, and he couldn’t think of anything worse. He had been hungry in his time; he knew that gnawing anguish well.

To his anger and intense surprise, Belle did not run. She actually had the audacity to laugh at him.

“You won’t forget about me, Rumpel,” she said. “No, I think that the more you try to tell yourself that I mean nothing to you, the more I’ll haunt your days and nights until you’re forced to accept the mistake that you’re making now.”

He didn’t have a ready answer for that one. It was a sharp, piercing blow to his armour, but he wouldn’t let her see that she had landed a blow, much less one so close to home. He just glared at her, hoping that soon, the aura of darkness that he always carried with him would knock her off balance and get her out of the cell.

Still, Belle did not move a muscle. The intensity of her unwavering blue gaze on him was unnerving, and he was once more reminded of the steel that she had shown against him more than once in the past. He remembered her convincing him to spare the life of the thief, only a few weeks after she had first arrived in the castle. He shuddered at the memory; even then she had already had such a powerful hold over him and he could not stay in her presence any longer lest she bewitch him once more through no magic other than her own stubbornness.

“Fine,” he snarled. “You’ve made your choice.”

He stalked out of the dungeon, slamming the door behind him and locking it tight with magic. He stood outside for a while, waiting for the inevitable sobbing that had accompanied her first stay in this dungeon.

It never came. He had to admit, he was impressed at her mettle, that her brave face extended beyond his presence.

As he moved away from the dungeon, an antique suit of armour caught the edge of his vision, and he narrowed his eyes at it.

“Don’t you start judging me too,” he growled, stalking back up to his workroom and determining to forget about the maid in the dungeon. He had given her his word, and he was going to stick to it, no matter what she might say about him.

As he passed the hall, he looked at the mess that he had made in there earlier, broken glass and china all around. Immediately, it brought with it the unwanted memories of Belle; it had been all of a minute and he was already reneging on his pledge never to think of her again. He remembered the anger he had felt, and he had remembered the confusion in her eyes. He remembered the happiness she had shown when she had returned to him. At the time, he had chalked it up to her having discovered a weakness in him that she was about to exploit. He had thought her the ingenue, feigning her ignorance.

Now that he had seen her in the dungeon and he had seen the cold steel that ran through her, he knew that she was so much more than just a pretty little actress that the queen had placed in his path, looking to unseat his power. Belle was so much more than anyone could ever imagine her.

He shook his head to try and rid her from his thoughts, but it was no use. A wave of his wand and swirl of inky magic had the place put to rights, as if his earlier outburst had never happened. Perhaps if it looked like nothing had happened, he could convince himself that nothing had happened; that Belle was not there in the dungeons, that he had never met her and never put himself into this position. 

Belle had made her bed by virtue of her own tenacity, and Rumpelstiltskin was going to make sure that she understood the ramifications of standing up to him.

He sat down heavily at the table, arms lightly on the arms of his chair, and he thought hard.

What exactly were the ramifications of standing up to him? Oh, he’d meted out various different punishments to people who had wronged him or wronged Bae in the past. He’d got quite creative in his vengeance against thieves who had tried to steal from him or people who had broken deals with him, but Belle had not done any of those things.

He had accused her of trying to steal his power, but there was the small matter of True Love’s Kiss. If her intentions had been to remove his powers, then it would not have come from a place of true love and it would have been rendered null and void. It was an attempt to break his curse, certainly, but it was born of a desire for him to be free of the curse.

She hadn’t broken a deal with him, either. It was he who was releasing her from her promise to stay with him forever. He was having trouble trying to work out exactly what she had done to wrong him except be her usual stubborn and annoyingly brave self.

It was no use. He didn’t want to think about her. He had said that she would be gone from his mind and memory as soon as the dungeon door was closed, and he was already in breach of that promise. Rumpelstiltskin went over to his spinning wheel, settling on the bench behind it and giving it a hard pull to start off the wheel turning. If he wanted to forget Belle and forget everything that had happened in the past day, then this was surely the best way to go about it, but after a few minutes, he felt the wheel slowing under his hand. The trouble was that he didn’t want to forget. The more he told himself that he was going to leave her in the dungeons, the more his mind kept wandering in that direction.

Rumpelstiltskin spent the entire night in such contemplation, and by the time morning came, he had come to a new conclusion.

He was going to have to try a different tactic. If she wouldn’t leave of her own accord, despite him showing her just how beastly he was, then he was going to have to make her leave by force.

Rumpelstiltskin made his way back down to the dungeons. Again, as he approached, he could hear no crying, and paused outside the door for a moment, collecting his thoughts. A part of him that he had tried to keep buried throughout the past day told him that he was in fact very glad that Belle was suffering no distress as a result of her imprisonment. He really did care for her more than he wanted to admit, but he couldn’t let himself admit that to Belle, of all people.

He flung open the door suddenly with magic, hoping to scare her and catch her off guard. As it was, Belle simply looked up from her contemplation of her own feet where they were stretched out in front of her on the hard cot in the cell and fixed him with the same penetrating stare that she had paralysed him with before when he had first come down confront her and tell her to leave.

He saw the empty plate and cup on the floor beside her and frowned.  He hadn’t brought that there, and he knew that Belle could not have left the dungeon to get any food for herself. She followed his gaze and raised an eyebrow. If Rumpelstiltskin didn’t know better, then he would say that she was trying to hide a smile from him.

“It seems that the castle wasn’t as keen on your plan to let me starve as you were,” she said lightly.

Rumpelstiltskin shook himself. The castle was attuned to his magic, he had spent so long here that it had gained a degree of intuition. No doubt he had been thinking about Belle and been hoping that she would not in fact starve to death, and the castle had seen fit to provide her with sustenance in order to prevent her from doing so.

“Have you changed your mind, Rumpelstiltskin?” Belle asked. “Or have you come down here to tell me to leave again, knowing that it will have just the same results as last time?”

“No,” Rumpelstiltskin snapped. “Since you won’t leave no matter how many times I tell you to, I have come to the conclusion that the only way forward is for me to remove you myself.”

He snapped his fingers before he could second guess himself, an inky cloud of magic enveloping the both of them. When the dark smoke cleared, they were outside the castle, with the gates separating them. Belle was on the outside, and he was still within the castle grounds.

Belle just folded her arms, glaring at him through the gate.

“Do you really think that you’re going to get rid of me this easily?”

She didn’t sound exactly smug. She didn’t sound like she was happy with the situation at all. She sounded angry, and disappointed, but above all, there was a grim determination in her voice. When she had said that she wasn’t giving up, she was sticking to her promises with a stubbornness and tenacity that Rumpelstiltskin would ordinarily have admired if it had not been directed against him in this most delicate of matters.

“Go on,” he said. “Shoo.”

It sounded so ineffectual and pathetic as he said it, like he was trying to wave away a stray animal. Perhaps if Belle thought that he was treating her like some long-lost mutt, she would actually realise that he was serious about her leaving the place and would go of her own accord.

“You’re becoming a pest, dearie,” he snarled through the gate. “I thought I made my feelings perfectly clear.”

“As clear as day,” Belle said. “But since I’m no longer within the confines of the Dark Castle, there’s nothing to stop me standing here and staring at you all day.”

Rumpelstiltskin just looked at her.

“There’s nothing to stop you turning around and leaving for a new life, either,” he said, pointing at the open road behind her. “You would do better to take that option. You won’t get any enjoyment out of standing here glaring at me, you know.”

“Are you quite sure of your convictions, Rumpel?” Belle asked. “I mean, after all, before you promised that once you locked me in the dungeon you would forget all about me and never think of me again whilst I slowly starved to death, and you can see how well that went for you.”

She was teasing him, he could tell somewhere deep down. She was trying to get a reaction out of him just as he was trying to get a reaction out of her. They were both desperate to rile each other, and neither of them seemed like they were willing to give an inch. Belle took a step closer towards the gates and reached a hand through the iron bars, pointing an accusatory finger at him.

“I know what you’re doing, Rumpelstiltskin.” She punctuated her words with jabs of her finger. “I know that you’re trying to convince me that you’re the terrible villain in this story. You’re so convinced that you’re the monster that no-one can love that you’re trying to make yourself into one. But it’s not working. You can’t fool me. I’ve seen the man underneath that mask. You’re a good man, there’s good in you, and I don’t understand why you won’t let that shine for me. I can understand that you have a reputation to maintain in the outside world, but I know that’s just a façade. I know that there is a man underneath. I don’t understand what would be so terrible for you if you were simply to admit the truth of my feelings for you and the feelings for me that I know are in there. You don’t believe that I can love you despite the proof being right there in front of your eyes.”

It was undeniable; True Love’s Kiss could not be faked no matter how much he might want to desperately believe that it could be, no matter how much he was desperate to convince himself that this was all a trick on Regina’s part.

“There are no feelings to admit,” he said coldly, he raised a hand to transport himself back into the castle. As the mist swirled around him once more, he heard Belle’s voice.

“I’ll still be right here when you want to talk. I’m not giving up.”

Back in his tower, Rumpelstiltskin sighed. Would it really be such a terrible thing to tell her the truth? He had never told anyone about Bae and about the circumstances that had led them to be separated for so many long and painful years. The knowledge of Bae was just another gap in his armour that he would never let anyone see. He could not show a single weakness that could be exploited against him.

It was just that something was telling him that Belle would not exploit him. Something was telling him that if she loved him as she professed and had proved to do, then she would help him in his quest to be reunited with his son. She was so stubborn, and so optimistic with it, that he knew she would stop at nothing to make sure that he and Bae were together again. That was just the kind of person she was.

He thought again of Robin Hood and what had happened when he had entered the castle, and the way that Belle had advocated for him. The bow that never missed, had missed, and Rumpelstiltskin knew that Belle knew it was her influence that had saved Robin’s life.

No matter what she might think of Rumpelstiltskin himself, surely when she learned that there was an innocent boy mixed up in it all, she would not be so heartless as to leave him in the lurch. Rumpelstiltskin sighed. He could really use an ally and a friend in his search for something, anything that could take him to the land without magic. Certainly, he had Jefferson scouring all the realms for as many different transportation methods as he could find, but so far he had turned up nothing of use. With Belle’s extensive book knowledge, she might know of something that neither he nor Jefferson had ever considered before.

Padding quietly across the room, Rumpelstiltskin waved his hand to open up a locked cabinet, the actual key to which had long been lost to the annals of time. Inside was nothing of immediate value, just a worn beige shawl. He took it out with reverence, bringing it to his face and breathing it in. It had been in the cabinet for so long that it had long since lost whatever traces of Bae it might once have held, but like this, Rumpelstiltskin could feel just a little bit closer to his son.

“What should I do, Bae?” he asked, although he didn’t know whom he was expecting to answer the question. He was met with silence, not even a snide voice in the back of his head telling him things for his own good.

Finally, he put the shawl down and took a peep out of the window, keeping to the shadows so that Belle would not see him if she was looking up at the tower. She was still in exactly the same place that he had left her earlier in the day, and she was not looking up at him. She was rubbing her arms, as the sun had gone in with the approach of evening, so the night had become cooler, and Rumpelstiltskin felt a not entirely unanticipated pang of sympathy. He couldn’t leave her out there, and it was clear that she was not going to go anywhere of her own accord.

His only option was to let her into the castle and let their lives continue as they had done before. If he could just avoid her and avoid her questioning, then he would have some time to spare and room to breathe whilst he worked out what to do next. It was a large enough castle, after all. It would be perfectly easy to hide away from her. There were plenty of deals to be made all over the realm. It was plausible that he might be away from the castle for extended periods of time. He could probably make it so that they never needed to interact at all.

Checking that there was a roaring fire in the main hall and plenty of blankets in her bed chamber, he cast a spell to summon her cloak from where it hung in her closet and send it out to the gates for her to keep her warm. Another wave of his hand had the gates open, and he watched from the tower as she hurried back towards the castle. A moment later he heard the heavy main doors open and then close again, and he came back to his workbench, sitting down at his abandoned potion brewing equipment. She was back in the castle, safe and warm, and he knew that she would be provided for. Now all he had to do was make sure that he never saw her again and never had to risk revealing his secret for the remainder of the time that she stayed here.

It was going to be easier said than done.

He had managed a week, holed up in his tower, trying to ignore the fact that Belle was still there and that his feelings for her were not going away. Rumpelstiltskin didn’t manage to get anything at all productive done during this time, as he found his thoughts wandering towards Belle more often than not. He kept wondering what she was doing, where she was in the castle, whether she was continuing her chores as if nothing had happened between them or if she was simply staying here as a place to stay, determined not to give up on him even if he wasn’t showing his face to her.

As the days had gone on, Rumpelstiltskin began to wonder if she had perhaps given up on him after all. She had not ventured into the tower in all the time that she had been back in the castle after his attempt to cast her out had failed. Even though the tower was nominally forbidden to her as being too full of dark magic and potentially fatal potions, she had never had any qualms about entering it when he had been in there before. Now he had spent a week in there, and she had not come in at all.

Perhaps she had sensed that he was avoiding her and was helping him to do so by not crowding into his personal space. Perhaps she was trying to avoid him as well, although his hiding away did make that rather easy for her. Whatever her reasons for leaving him alone were, he knew that she was still there in the castle when she was perfectly free to leave, and to him, that gave him the small spark of hope that she had not in fact given up.

Rumpelstiltskin sighed, tidying away the ingredients for a potion that he had been working on for a princess in a far-off part of the realm who was desperate to have a child but unable to conceive. It was a simple enough potion that would cure her ailment, but he couldn’t concentrate on it at all, his mind too occupied with Belle. The hope that he felt that Belle had not given up on him felt at odds with his desire to see her gone from the castle, and he knew, deep down, that it was because he wanted to give in. He wanted her to know the truth, but at the same time, he was still fearful of the consequences should he divulge the real reasons for his attachment to his power.

Glancing up at the clock on the wall, he saw that it was getting close to midnight, so it should be safe to venture out of his tower in search of some sustenance. Over the past few days he had simply been bringing food up to his workroom with magic, but he needed a change of scenery, and a walk through the castle would do him good.

The place was quiet, and Belle’s library was dark as he passed it. It wouldn’t be the first time that she had sat up reading into the small hours of the morning whilst he had been occupied with his spells and potions, and he recalled with a smile the moments when he had come into the library of a morning to find her still stretched out on the chaise, a book in her hand from the night before.

When he reached the kitchen, however, he saw that there was dim candlelight under the door. Logic told him that this was Belle, come for a snack or something to drink in the middle of the night, but the part of him that still feared some kind of attack at any moment made him wary, and he pushed the door open a fraction to peer inside.

Belle was there, waiting for the kettle to boil on the stove, and she looked over to him as she heard the door open.

“I’m making tea,” she said. “Would you like some?”

“You’re making tea at this time of the night?” Rumpelstiltskin asked incredulously.

Belle nodded. “I’ve almost finished my book, and I know that I won’t be able to get to sleep until I finish it tonight. It’s so close to the end, and everything’s very tense. The heroine is just about to escape on the back of the dragon who’s been guarding her tower.”

Rumpelstiltskin had to laugh. “Usually heroines are escaping from dragons, not with them.”

“Not this one. The dragon is there for her protection, you see. It’s a guardian, not a gaoler.”

She poured boiling water from the kettle into a teapot and brought it over to the kitchen table, taking a seat and indicating for Rumpelstiltskin to sit with her. She was wearing her nightgown and a thick woollen shawl; Rumpelstiltskin recognised it as one that he had spun and woven for her when he had first given her a proper bed chamber in the castle. It was rare for him to spin with ordinary wool these days and creating the piece for Belle had sent his mind to a welcome memory of his time with the spinsters when he had been a boy.

He sat down, watching as Belle poured two cups, and he wondered what on earth they were going to talk about having not spoken to each other for a week, and having last spoken on such sour terms. Everything was hanging heavy and unsaid in the air between them, and they could not continue to pretend that nothing had happened.

“I’ve missed you,” Belle said. It was certainly not the first thing that Rumpelstiltskin had been expecting to hear from her, and he was thrown for a loop for a moment, not knowing how to respond. Luckily, Belle continued to speak, giving him some time to collect his thoughts together.

“This past week whilst you’ve been shut up in your tower… You’ve been avoiding me, Rumpelstiltskin, and I would like to know why. I think that you care about me. You wouldn’t have let me back into the castle if you didn’t. The fact that you care but you want so desperately to make me believe that you don’t… I’m not sure what’s going on anymore.”

Rumpelstiltskin wasn’t entirely sure that he knew himself what was going on anymore.

“I don’t understand why accepting that I feel this way about you, and that you feel the same way, would be such a bad thing,” Belle said. “If you can help me to understand that, and if you still want me to leave afterwards, then I will.”

Rumpelstiltskin shook his head.

“Please don’t leave.” It was the first time that he had really given voice to the thoughts that had been sitting at the back of his mind ever since he had first made the decision that Belle had to go. He had been so set on the idea of casting her out of the castle that he had paid no attention to that little voice telling him that he was going to regret making her leave, and that he would never see her again if he did.

Belle just looked at him. “Why is it such a bad thing, Rumpel?” she asked gently. 

It was time to tell her the truth. She loved him, that was clear, and the fact that she was willing to follow his first instructions and leave him alone just as long as she got an explanation gave him even further proof of it.

“It’s not that my power means more to me than you,” he began. “It’s not that my power means more to me than love, not really. It’s that I need my power. I need this curse and the magic it brings me.”

“Why do you need it?”

“Do you remember that I told you about my son?” he asked.

Belle nodded. “You said that you lost him. You also said that when I returned from the town with straw, you would tell me the tale. You never did tell me that tale, not really.”

“I know. So, that’s why I’m telling you now.”

“All right. I’m listening.”

“My son is lost to me,” Rumpelstiltskin began. “It was because of this very power that I lost him. But if I keep working with it, then I have the means to find him again. He’s not dead; he’s lost to another realm. He was determined to save me from this curse and the corrupting power of it, and he found a means to travel to another world, a land with no magic. That was when we were separated. He went through the portal. I did not. I was afraid of what would happen on the other side.”

“You were afraid of losing your power?”

“A little, but I was more afraid that the portal would tear us apart anyway. It’s not the first time I have been separated from someone by a portal. I was separated from my own father with one, and it wasn’t something that I would ever want to happen to my own son. As it was, it happened anyway. With my curse, with this power, I can hopefully find another way to that land where my son is, and I can be reunited with him again. I can’t give up the hope of seeing him again, Belle. Please don’t ask me to.”

Belle reached across the table and closed her hand over his.

“I understand,” she said. “Of course, your son must take precedence. I would never want to come before him.”

“Thank you.”

“Thank you for telling me.” Belle smiled. “You know, you could have told me sooner,” she said. “All this time that you’ve been avoiding me, and I could have been helping you to find a way back to him.”

“Belle, I really can’t ask you to do that.”

“You’re not asking. I’m offering.” She paused, stroking her thumb over his knuckles. “I love you, Rumpelstiltskin. I will always help you, because that’s what love is all about. Helping the people that you care about. Besides,” she continued. “I’m sure that there’s a way.”

“A way for what? I’ve been searching for a way to the Land Without Magic for centuries, Belle, and I haven’t found one yet.”

“There will be one,” she said firmly. “There is always a way, no matter how bleak the course might be. And I’m sure that there will be a way for us to be together as well. A way for us to share True Love’s Kiss without it breaking your curse.”

Perhaps before, Rumpelstiltskin wouldn’t have believed her, but there was something in Belle’s firm voice and the brightness and optimism in her face that once more reignited that small spark of hope deep inside him.

They would find a way, both to rescue Bae from the other realm and to truly express their love.

Neither of them were going to give up.

X

_“I’ve worked it out,” Belle says, taking him by the hand and leading him through the labyrinthine corridors of the Dark Castle. He knows every inch of this castle like the back of his hand, and yet these are corridors that he has never set foot in before. He follows her blindly in the darkness; he trusts her implicitly, but then her hand lets go of his and she vanishes into the gloom in front of him._

_“Belle?” he calls. “Belle, where are you?”_

_“I’m right here, Rumpel. I’m right here with you, like I said that I would be. I’m not going anywhere, you know that.”_

_He follows the sound of her voice through the corridors again. Occasionally he sees things that look familiar, but it feels like the castle has changed around the entire layout of the place to Belle’s own personal taste._

_Rumpelstiltskin finds that he doesn’t mind this quite as much as he might do otherwise. Belle is mistress here, she always has been from the moment that the castle decided that it was going to aid her in whatever strange quest she was on to get him to see reason and accept that he was worthy of her love._

_“In here, Rumpel.” Her voice calls to him through an open door. “I’ve found out a way for us to be together, forever, without breaking your curse. Everything will be all right, you’ll see.”_

_He goes towards the door and enters the room; it’s his bedroom. Belle is lying naked on the sheets, her arms stretched above her head and her legs open, showing off her sex, already glistening with the need of him._

_“Come to me, Rumpel,” she purrs. “Come to me and we can be together.”_

Rumpelstiltskin jolted awake, panting heavily in the wake of the erotic dream, rubbing his forehead to try and make the heady images go away. These intimate dreams of himself and Belle had only become more frequent, and they really weren’t helping him at all. He was supposed to be concentrating his efforts on his search for Baelfire whilst Belle concentrated on finding a way that would allow them to kiss and truly express their feelings without breaking the necessary curse that he needed to perform his own task.

As it was, it was becoming increasingly difficult to concentrate on anything when Belle was around. The memories of these dreams haunted him throughout his waking hours. He had never been one for taking pleasure in the flesh before; it had never been an important thing to him. He had so many other things to be doing, deals that needed to be made in order to bring him ever closer to his goal. 

Now, though, he was finding himself indulging even more often than usual, scurrying away to his workroom or his bedroom and taking himself in hand, rubbing his cock to the memories of Belle in his bed, memories that had never even occurred in real life, but only in these wonderful dreams.

Belle had commented that he was avoiding her again, but he didn’t tell her the real reason for it. His abstraction when she was in the room was clear, and he only hoped that her research would turn up something fruitful soon so that hopefully, this pressure would be alleviated.

There again, even if Belle did find something that would allow them to kiss, there was nothing to say that she would want to do anything else with him. She might have fallen in love with him in spite of his appearance, but that did not necessarily mean that she would want him to touch her so intimately. She would be a maiden after all, and probably saving herself for marriage.

True, he had just turned her fiancé into a rose, and she had just expressed her own love for him. Something about those circumstances should have given Rumpelstiltskin a clue that she might be more inclined than he thought to share his bed, but he had never been one for optimism at the best of times.

Optimism was Belle’s forte. Steadfast, tenacious optimism that refused to die even in the face of everything that he had thrown at it and had in its turn been rewarded. A little of her optimism had worn off onto him throughout her stay in the castle, but after everything that had happened to Rumpelstiltskin during his long life, he knew better than to take anything for granted. What little optimism he had now was reserved solely for his chances of finding Baelfire. Anything to do with Belle would have to wait until her own stubbornness brought proof of her faith.

Still. He couldn’t avoid her all the time. He had tried doing that before, and he knew all too well where that had got him. Even if their relationship never became so intimate, he still had the dreams that he could indulge in, and that would be enough for him.

He was spinning in the main room when Belle rushed in wearing an excited smile on her face. He had moved the wheel back down out of the tower workroom in an effort to consciously spend more time in Belle’s presence, and it seemed to have worked. She spent less time in her library room and more time surrounded by stacks of books in the hall, sitting on the chaise looking through all her references whilst Rumpel span, the repetitive motion soothing his troubled mind and clearing his head.

“Rumpel,” Belle began, and there was excitement in her voice even if there was nervousness in her face.

“Yes, my dear?”

“I think I’ve found it. The way for us to be together.”

“You have?” Rumpelstiltskin was horribly aware of how strangled his voice sounded. This was how so many of his dreams had begun, with Belle telling him that she had found the answer. Of course, because he himself didn’t know what the answer was, she had never elaborated on what it might mean for them. After making the announcement, the dreams had always taken a turn for the less than innocent.

“Yes. Here. I was reading up about the nature of curses and seeing if there was any way for the victim of a curse to turn it to their advantage. Here, look.”

She turned the heavy book that she was carrying towards him and pointed out the passage in question; Rumpelstiltskin scanned it quickly, but Belle was already summarising for him.

“It says that whilst a curse’s effects are actually beneficial to the bearer and can be used to create positive outcomes for them, the curse is not technically a curse but a simple spell.”

Rumpelstiltskin looked up at her. “I see, but how does this help us?”

“You need your curse in order to find Baelfire,” Belle said. “Its effects are beneficial to you and you are using them to create a positive outcome – reuniting with your son. So, for now, your curse is not a true curse, it’s just a spell that you’re under. And since it is not a curse, it won’t break with True Love’s Kiss.”

“I see.” The logic was sound. A curse was supposed to be a malediction and to make life miserable for the bearer. The curse of the dark one had certainly done that for Rumpelstiltskin for a long time, until he had realised its potential in helping him to get back to his son. Now that he actually needed it and was working with it, rather than against it, perhaps it was time to re-evaluate the definition of it.

“So…” Belle closed the book, sitting down beside him on the spinning wheel bench.

“So…”

“Do you think that we could maybe try it?” she asked. “I mean, you were able to save it before when the curse was breaking the first time. If our theory isn’t correct and it begins to break again, then you should still be able to bring it back.”

Rumpelstiltskin thought about it for a long time, and whilst he was very much in favour of the plan, there was still a niggling doubt in the back of his mind.

“If I accept this curse as something that is currently benefitting me, will it ever be broken?” he asked. “I need this power to find Baelfire now, but when the time comes, and I have found him, what happens then?”

“Well, if the curse is no longer being used for positive outcomes, then presumably it becomes a curse once more, and True Love’s Kiss will break it,” Belle said. “But even if it doesn’t, we will find another way to break it. We don’t give up, you and I. We’ll find a way, no matter what it takes.”

Rumpelstiltskin smiled, and took the book from her hands, setting it on the bench with them.

“Well, in that case I think I’m ready.”

“Are you sure?” Belle asked.

“No, not at all. But the first step needs to be made at some point, after all.”

Belle smiled. “Yes, it does.”

She closed her hands over his and leaned in close towards him. It was just like their first kiss had been, but this time, there would be no yelling, no misunderstanding, no accusations, and no dungeons. This time, he could just enjoy it for what it was. Love, and a kiss.

He felt it the moment that Belle’s lips brushed his. It was the same pull as last time, the same magic swirling through his veins as true love sought to make right the things that had gone wrong. He was ready for it this time though and pushed back against it.

 _No, not yet,_ he thought.  _Soon, though, soon. I still need the curse right now. I’ll give in soon. I’m not giving up._

The magic relented, becoming nothing more than a soothing hum in the background, reassuring him that as soon as he was ready, it would roar back into ferocious life once more and take away the curse and all the things that he had suffered under it.

Belle pulled away, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

Rumpelstiltskin nodded. “Oh yes. I’m a little more than all right, my love.”

He initiated the kiss this time, slipping his hands around her back and pulling her in, and he felt her fingers bury into his tangled hair. Her tongue was pressing at the seam of his lips, and he opened for her readily, letting her in both literally and metaphorically; truly letting her into his heart for the first time.

“Oh Belle,” he groaned as she pulled away again, resting her forehead against his. “Oh Belle, my love, I have dreamed of this moment, when we could do this and be together. I’ve heard you say those words so many times.  _I’ve found it_.”

Belle smiled, and there was something in her bright blue eyes that had not been there before. An excitement, perhaps, or just possibly… was it arousal?

“I’ve dreamed about it too,” she said. “So much. I’ve been working so hard to try and find a way to make those dreams become reality, and now they are.”

The colour was rising in her cheeks and spreading down over her neck to her chest, the pinkness disappearing beneath the collar of her chemise. She was biting her bottom lip again, and the sight of it brought back unwanted memories of the exact nature of his dreams, when she had lain in his bed and accepted his body into hers with that same expression, of an innocent longing to know more.

“Belle?” he ventured. “Is everything all right?”

She nodded quickly. “Yes, yes. Everything’s fine. Kiss me again, Rumpel.”

He was all too happy to oblige, and Belle sank her fingers into his hair again.

Kissing Belle was different to kissing the other women he’d been intimate with in his life. Milah had been distant, especially towards the end. Cora had been fierce, bruising, constantly wanting dominance and control. Belle met him in the middle.

There was something in Belle’s kiss though, an eagerness for more, and Rumpelstiltskin wondered if that was what she truly wanted or if he was just projecting his own longings onto her. Her hands slipped down from his hair to his stiff collar, and then they were pressing against his chest, trying to slide between the buttons of his waistcoat. No, he didn’t think that he had misread her intentions.

He pulled away a little.

“Belle,” he began, “are you sure?”

Belle nodded. “Yes. Yes, Rumpel, I am very sure. You know, you’re not the only one who’s been dreaming about this moment.”

Her lip was back between her teeth again, her eyes still bright, and Rumpelstiltskin felt his heart skip a beat as butterflies began to wake up in the pit of his stomach. He wanted this so much; it was all he had been dreaming about for so long. At the same time though, this was a momentous step for their relationship to take. Belle was a maiden, and the last thing that he wanted to do was hurt her in his ardour.

Belle stroked her hands down his chest again, slowly undoing each of the buttons of his waistcoat in turn until he took her fingers.

“Are you absolutely sure?”

She nodded enthusiastically.

“I may never have lain with a man before, Rumpel, but I’m not naïve. I know what happens now, and I want it to happen. I’ve read enough books and done enough exploring of my own.”

Rumpelstiltskin had to suppress a groan at the image of just what Belle’s explorations might have entailed, and he closed his eyes, trying to reign himself in. He couldn’t get carried away now, not when they were so close to sharing something so wonderful.

There was a moment of pause then, both of them just staring at each other, drinking in the look of desire in each other’s faces. A small part of Rumpelstiltskin, long since buried in the face of all the proof to the contrary, still could not believe that Belle could ever truly want him for who he was.

“Belle… You have to know that my skin… I do look like this all over.”

Belle shrugged. “I wouldn’t expect anything less. All I care about is that we’re together. You’re beautiful, Rumpelstiltskin; whether you believe that or not I’ve always been able to see it. I fell in love with the man, not his face.”

“Sometimes I can’t believe that this isn’t all a dream,” Rumpelstiltskin confessed. 

“Well, if it is a dream, I hope that it’s going to be a very pleasant one,” Belle said. She slipped her fingers free from his and set to work on his shirt buttons, unfastening each one with the same care and attention that she had given to his waistcoat. Once it was open, she spread the two halves, gazing at his bare chest.

“I said that you were beautiful,” she said as she mapped his chest with her fingertips, making him gasp with arousal as she brushed over his sensitive nipples. “I love the way that your skin looks in the firelight. It’s like gold, precious.”

Rumpelstiltskin took her hand, pressing little kisses to each of her fingertips and working his way up her arm and back to her lips once more. It was so wonderful to be able to kiss her, knowing that the curse was still there in the back of his mind. The fact that he could feel that frisson of magic every time he kissed her showed him that the magic of true love was still there, still wanting to break the curse, and he knew that in time, once he was reunited with Baelfire, he would be able to let go of it for good and become the man that Belle made him want to be again.

He stood up, handing Belle off the spinning wheel bench.

“I think that we deserve more comfortable surroundings,” he said, and he raised a hand to transport them to his bedchamber. Belle shook her head, placing a hand on his arm.

“No,” she said. “I think I’d rather stay here. No magic. Not now. Just us.”

There was a plush rug on the floor in front of the hearth, the softest silk discovered in a deal with a rich merchant from Agrabah. Rumpelstiltskin took the throw blankets and cushions from the chaise longue and spread them out on the rug, creating a decadent makeshift bed for them on the floor of the main room. In a way it was fitting that they should consummate their relationship here, where so many of their interactions had taken place and where they had confessed their feelings properly. The hall was neutral ground, unlike Belle’s library or Rumpelstiltskin’s workroom. It was a place where they were equal and where the boundaries between master and maid had always been the most blurred.

He lay Belle down gently in among the cushions before he shucked his open waistcoat and shirt and stretched out beside her, going in for another kiss. Now that they were able to kiss, he never wanted to stop doing it, and he trailed his lips over her cheeks and neck, all along the areas where her blush covered her skin until he met the edge of her chemise.

“May I?” he asked, indicating the lacing at the front of her bodice.

Belle nodded, lying back and pushing her breasts up towards him as he unlaced her. Her nipples were already proud, dark points against the thin fabric of her chemise, and he rubbed at them gently before laving his tongue over them, wetting the white material and making it even more transparent.

“Oh yes, Rumpel,” Belle breathed. “Yes, please.”

He chanced to slip a finger into the neckline of her chemise and tug it down, exposing one breast so that he could kiss the dusky pink bud. His hands slipped down to her waist, beginning to bunch up the fabric of her skirt, and the heels of her shoes scraped on the floor.

“Take them off,” she panted. “Take everything off. I want to see you, Rumpel, all of you, and I want you to see all of me, too.”

Rumpelstiltskin chanced to use a little surreptitious magic to remove his boots, reasoning that unlacing them by hand would have taken up too much time that could have been put to much better use in other pursuits, but he dutifully moved down to Belle’s feet to unbuckle her shoes, kissing her toes as he hooked the shoes off. She giggled, squirming under his touch, and he filed away her ticklishness for use at a later stage. For now, though, he wouldn’t tease her. There was far too much at stake in this moment.

She shuffled further onto the rug to keep her feet off the cold floor, and she let her legs fall open, cradling Rumpelstiltskin between them as he made his way back up her body to capture her lips once more. Belle’s arms were around his middle, holding him tightly, and he could feel his arousal stirring in his trousers, the leather around his crotch tightening as his cock responded eagerly to Belle’s enthusiasm.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

Belle nodded. “More than ready. I’ve been ready for so long, Rumpel. I’ve been thinking about this since before I kissed you that first time.”

Rumpelstiltskin smiled, not at the memory of that first kiss and all the fallout that had come because of it, but at the thought that Belle had already been considering this at that time. He really had underestimated her proclivity for such thoughts. Had he known then what he knew about her daydreams now, perhaps things could have taken a much more interesting turn in the interim.

He unfastened her skirt and slipped it down her legs until she could kick it off and away, and Belle wasted no time in pulling off her chemise, leaving her wearing just her drawers, her breasts bare to his gaze and her chest heaving with desire and the need of him. He wanted to kiss every inch of her creamy skin, but the increasing tightness in his trousers was driving him in another direction, that of slaking their mutual lust as quickly as possible.

He pushed the thought away, knowing that it came from the darker parts of his mind. This moment was going to be the first moment of the rest of his and Belle’s lives together, and he would not and could not give in to more primal urges now. This moment would be with them forever, for better or worse.

“Please touch me Rumpel,” Belle gasped. “Please, kiss me.”

If that was what she wanted then Rumpelstiltskin would be the last one to deny her, and he kissed his way down from her mouth over her neck and chest, tugging each of her nipples into his mouth in turn, sucking on them and running his tongue over the hard peaks, making her groan and writhe underneath him. Her fingers were scrabbling at the lacings of his trousers, and a quick pulse of magic, so small he barely had to think about it, had them loosened and her hands slipping under his waistband and in between the leather and his skin. The first touch of her fingertips against his sensitive cock made him hiss with pleasure and the heady need for more, wanting her to bring him as close to ecstasy as she could. Oh, he wanted to be inside her so badly, to bury himself up to the hilt inside her sweet wet heat and just lose himself forever in her body. He ran one hand down her body to cup her sex through her drawers, and he groaned when he felt wet on the cotton as he pressed a finger along the line of her slit. She was ready for him. Against all the odds, she truly wanted him; something like this could not be faked.

“Are you ready, Belle?” he asked again. She had told him that she was, but it was still so unbelievable a thought to comprehend that he wanted to make absolutely sure before things went too far. There was still the vague hope of salvaging some of his sanity if they stopped now.

“Yes,” Belle said. “Yes, I’m ready. Are you ready, Rumpel?”

He nodded vigorously. He was definitely ready, and he sat back on his knees, hooking his thumbs into her drawers and pulling them slowly down her legs.

The blush was still rising in Belle’s chest and cheeks as she was revealed to him completely, but there was no sign of embarrassment or discomfort in her eyes. They were bright with lust and want, just as he knew that his were. He reached out to touch her again, stroking his fingers through her thick, dark nether curls and finding her wet slit again, her juices slick on his fingertips as he opened her up for him, her sex dark and pink and so luscious and inviting.

“Take your trousers off,” Belle mumbled.

“Pardon?”

“Take your trousers off. You can see all of me now. I said that I wanted to see all of you without your clothes. I know what to expect.”

Considering that he was not an ordinary man by any manner or means, Rumpelstiltskin did doubt that, but he obeyed Belle’s instruction nonetheless. He was powerless not to. Her eyes and her voice and the sheer depth of her love for him held him in thrall better than his dagger could ever hope to.

He peeled off his trousers, and let Belle look her fill at him, at his cock that sprung proudly to attention on being freed from its constraints. He was so hard and eager, and so desperate to feel her friction around his length. It was all that he could do not to take himself in hand like he had done on so many previous nights when he had woken to dreams of Belle spread out in front of him much like she was now. He couldn’t let her down now, not on this most important of occasions.

Belle smiled as she took in his nakedness, and her legs lolled apart, presenting her glistening folds to him.

“Make love to me, Rumpel,” she said. “I love you so much, and I know that you love me too. Show me how much you love me.”

“With pleasure.”

Concentrating on Belle would hopefully give him a little hope of holding out and not disgracing himself during this first time with her, and settling himself as comfortably as possible on his knees between her thighs, he slipped a hand back down through her curls to pet at her entrance, spreading around the ready honey there and finding the little pearl of her pleasure. She screamed as he touched it, and he was alarmed for a moment before he saw the slack-jawed smile on her face.

“Yes,” she murmured. “Yes, yes, do that again.”

He rubbed the pad of his thumb in a slow circle around her clit again, and she continued to moan. She was vocal about what she liked, and Rumpelstiltskin had to smile. Belle had always been vocal when it came to her interactions with him, always telling him exactly what she felt about what he was doing at any given moment, and she was showing no signs of stopping now that he was doing things that were infinitely more pleasurable to her than any of his other dealings.

“Tell me what you want, Belle,” he said. If she had done some exploration of her own just as he had, then she should know how to bring herself to that glorious peak, and he could learn from her.

“Just like that,” she panted. “Just don’t stop touching me, please, Rumpel.”

He pushed a finger up inside her entrance; her walls were tight and fluttering around him and he prayed that he wouldn’t hurt her. She was showing no signs of pain, her hips jerking and wriggling under his touch as he rubbed at her swollen pearl again.

She cried out as she came hard, her channel clenching around his finger.

“Oh yes, Rumpel, yes!”

Her warm juices ran over his hand as he drew his finger out of her, and her eyes, which had been closed in her rapture, fluttered open to regard him with a sated, boneless smile.

“That felt wonderful,” she breathed, and then her hand was reaching out to take his cock, stroking gently up and down his length. Even that soft, featherlight touch felt like it was too much for him. Liquid was already beading at his tip, and he knew that it would not take him long to follow her over the edge.

“Oh Belle,” he groaned. “Let me be inside you, please.”

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, yes, come on inside.”

She released her grip on him to allow him to take his weight on one arm and line up with her entrance, and he pushed in as slowly as he could stand, trying to let her get used to the feeling of him.

“Are you all right?” he asked as she gave a gasp.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I’m all right, but you’re a lot bigger than your finger. No deeper. Not right now, not just yet.”

Rumpelstiltskin nodded and pulled out a little way, giving quick, shallow thrusts. The feel of her around him, even if he wasn’t completely buried inside her like he had dreamed about, was enough to make his head spin. As he had expected, only a few moments passed before he was spilling himself inside her, shouting her name over and over to the evening air, knowing that no-one but Belle could hear him.

As his cock began to soften, he pulled out of her, turning onto his side and bringing her with him, relishing in the closeness that they could finally share after so long skirting around each other, acknowledging their mutual feelings but being unable to act upon them.

“I love you, Rumpelstiltskin,” Belle said, her words becoming a happy sigh.

“And I love you, Belle.”

They weren’t giving up, either of them. This interlude did not mark the end of their search for Baelfire. This was simply the start of a new stage of the journey for them, one that would be filled with love and optimism, and one that would end with a reunion, and them becoming a family once more.

As Belle settled in his arms and her breathing became light and even, Rumpelstiltskin pulled the throw blanket over them. He had no desire to move for anyone now. All he wanted was to marvel at Belle’s cleverness, and the tenacity that had brought them a way to be together at long last.

He loved her so much, and nothing was going to keep them apart any more.


End file.
